Drowning in a Sea of Plastic

As we approach another Earth Day (April 22), I have one thing on my mind: plastic.

We are killing our planet, and the animals living here, with plastic. Plastic bags. Plastic straws. Plastic water bottles. Plastic of every kind.

The oceans are filled with floating islands of plastic, much of it discharged from passing ships. Beaches are littered with countless plastic bottles. Whales, turtles and other marine life are dying because of plastic. A dolphin starved to death when a plastic 'ring' got caught around its snout, keeping it clamped shut. A whale that died near the Philippines was found to have nearly 90 pounds of plastic in its stomach. Urban landscapes are littered with discarded plastic grocery bags.

The statistics are staggering. A person uses a plastic bag on average for only 12 minutes. On average we recycle only one plastic bag of every 200 we use. Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. According to the Earth Policy Institute, nearly 2 million plastic bags are used per minute. 

At least 16 African countries have announced bans on certain types of plastic bags, to varying levels of effectiveness. Before a ban on thin bags—which tear readily and get caught by the wind—went into effect in 2003, plastic bags were christened South Africa’s “national flower” because of their prevalence in bushes and trees. Thicker bags are taxed. Many European countries tax plastic bags or ban their free distribution. 

According to the EPI, “plastic bags have been found in stomachs of several endangered marine species,” including various turtles and porpoises, and 94 percent of North Sea birds. The Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec have each halved their plastic bag use through a variety of measures, including store incentives for using reusable bags and retailer-imposed fees. Livestock choking on plastic bags—from camels in the United Arab Emirates to sheep in Mauritania and cattle in India and Texas—have led communities to consider regulation." 

Currently 100 billion plastic bags pass through the hands of U.S. consumers every year—almost one bag per person each day. More than 150 U.S. cities and counties ban or require fees for plastic bags. California passed the first statewide ban in 2014, though Hawaii already had a de facto ban through county ordinances. Over 49 million Americans live in communities that have passed plastic bag bans or fees. U.S. cities with bag bans include San Francisco (as of 2007), Portland (2011), Seattle (2012), Austin (2013), Los Angeles (2014), Dallas (2015), and Chicago (2015). And then there is the state of Arizona, which passed a law prohibiting cities from passing legislation banning plastic bags.

Consider these statistics from the Center for Biological Diversity:

1. Americans use 100 billion plastic bags a year, which require 12 million barrels of oil to manufacture.
2. It only takes about 14 plastic bags for the equivalent of the gas required to drive one mile.
3. The average American family takes home almost 1,500 plastic shopping bags a year.
   
4. According to Waste Management, only 1 percent of plastic bags is returned for recycling. That means that the average family only recycles 15 bags a year; the rest ends up in landfills as litter.
5. Up to 80 percent of ocean plastic pollution enters the ocean from land.
6. At least 267 different species have been affected by plastic pollution in the ocean.
7. 1000 marine animals are killed by plastic bags annually.
8. One in three leatherback sea turtles has been found with plastic in its stomach.
9. Plastic bags are used for an average of 12 minutes.
10. It takes 500 (or more) years for a plastic bag to degrade in a landfill. Unfortunately the bags don't break down completely but instead photo-degrade, becoming microplastics that absorb toxins and continue to pollute the environment.

I keep an assortment of reusable bags in my car. Each bag cost me around $1, and I have recouped that minuscule cost several times over with the 5 cents/bag discount grocery stores give each time I use one of these bags. I wash them in the kitchen sink to keep them clean. Yet whenever I go grocery shopping, I have to ask the person bagging the groceries not to put already bagged items into another bag. 

There seems to be a compulsion to bag every single item. Yesterday I asked the bagger not to put a bag of popcorn into one of my resusable bags, as there wasn't room and it wasn't necessary. Yet when I pushed the shopping cart to my car, I found a plastic bag holding two bags of potato chips. I immediately removed the chip bags from the grocery bag and returned it to the store's bag recycling box. But why won't people listen when I say I don't want, or need, a plastic bag for every single item? Likewise, if I buy one or two small items, DON'T PUT THEM INTO A PLASTIC BAG! I am quite capable of carrying things in my hands.

I have seen people pushing grocery carts from the store with a cart holding 15-20 plastic bags of food. Why? Why not use reusable bags for their purchases? The question used to be asked, "Paper or plastic?" Now, paper bags are an option only at Trader Joe's, which uses paper grocery bags as the only choice (aside from reusable bags, of course). 

And plastic straws? How many people actually need to use a straw to drink from a glass or cup? Really, the only people using straws should be those who are unable to drink from a can, cup or glass without using a straw. What happened to paper straws, which were in use for decades? And what about personal, reusable, cleanable stainless steel straws? There are options other than plastic. I saw an online video of a family of boaters trying to remove a plastic straw that was deeply embedded in one nostril of a large sea turtle. The people finally were able to remove the straw from the obviously distressed turtle and release it back into the water. 

I am glad to learn that some restaurants no longer automatically give a straw with each drink. They have straws available to those who ask for them. Yet a patron of a fast food restaurant recently attacked the young woman working the counter because she didn't automatically hand him a straw. 

Our self-entitled, it's-all-about-me and the environment-be-damned attitude is killing our plant -- the only know habitable planet we have. Is it such a hardship to give up plastic drinking straws or to use reusable grocery bags? When I buy something at REI, I am always asked whether I need a bag for my purchase, and I always say I do not. 

Planet Under Attack

It's Earth Day 2018.

And our planet, our only home, is in big trouble. The United States, once a leader in environmental issues, now is the leader in rolling back environmental protections. The current administration has canceled a variety of measures designed to protect our water and air. Here is a list of some of the anti-science, anti-environment, anti-animal actions taken or proposed by the current administration.

• The so-called Environmental Protection Agency has started efforts to roll back tougher emissions standards for cars. The administration also is proposing cuts to clean energy and climate programs, as well as eliminating the agency climate change research program. It also has plans to loosen regulations regarding toxic air pollution. 
• FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) has removed the phrase 'climate change' from its strategic plan. 
• The administration seeks to axe several NASA earth science missions, while it calls for increases in fossil fuel programs. The president continues to advocate for "beautiful, clean coal." 
• Seventy five percent of the National Parks Advisory Board has resigned in protest. Government web sites have been systematically altered to remove mention of climate change. The Interior Department has declared that accidental bird deaths are legal. 
• Two new national monuments, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante, both in Utah, are being dramatically downsized. 
• The Department of Interior has proposed auctioning off oil and gas leases for 77 million acres of federal waters within the Gulf of Mexico—the largest lease auction of its kind ever announced.
• The EPA is set to withdraw the Clean Power Plan, the lynchpin of the Obama Administration's effort to combat climate change.
• The administration has suspended a study of health risks to residents who live near mountaintop removal coal mine sites in the Appalachian Mountains. 
• The EPA has drastically slowed enforcement of environmental protection laws.
• The Interior Department has relaxed certain aspects of protections for the endangered greater sage grouse.
• The administration canceled a rule that would have helped prevent endangered whales and sea turtles from becoming entangled in fishing nets off the U.S. West Coast. 
• The US pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord signed by 194 other nations.
• The EPA dismissed several of its key science advisors.
• The president signed an executive order that aims to increase offshore oil drilling.
• Congress has passed legislation that would permit aerial hunting of bears, as well as shooting of denning mother bears and cubs and mother wolves and pups in Alaska

To read a comprehensive list of anti-environmental actions taken by the current administration, go to https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/how-trump-is-changing-science-environment/ Educate yourself, then get involved in efforts to save our planet. Become an activist. Register to vote, and then VOTE in elections at all levels of government. Let your elected officials know that you do not approve of this administration's anti-environment plans and actions. 

Find out what you can do on a personal level to protect the environment. After learning that the average person uses and discards some 300 plastic toothbrushes in their lifetime, I am switching to biodegradable, environmentally friendly bamboo toothbrushes, which cost less than standard plastic toothbrushes. If you must use a drinking straw, opt for a paper, not plastic, straw. Or buy your own reusable straw. Take reusable shopping bags with you, keep them in your car, and use them rather than plastic bags for your groceries and other purchases.

I know these are small steps, but if enough people take small steps, they can create big changes.

Saving Tomorrow

Today is Earth Day, and I would bet our precious Earth is crying. 
Humans are continuing to destroy the only home we have. Rain forests are disappearing, glaciers and polar ice caps are melting at a rapid rate, threatening the survival of polar bears. Poachers are killing elephants and rhinos at a rate far faster than they can reproduce, all so the Asians can have their ivory trinkets and 'magic potions' made of rhino horn (which is made of the same 'magic' substance as fingernails). Fracking is causing an unprecedented number of earthquakes in Oklahoma. The Gulf of Mexico and the animals that live there are still suffering from the massive, 200-million-gallon BP oil spill of five years ago. Air pollution in some major world cities is so bad it threatens the health of inhabitants. The war on apex predators (bears, bobcats, wolves, mountain lions) continues unabated. The use of pesticides and herbicides threatens human health. Monsanto continues to push its genetically modified food products and oppose all efforts to mandate labeling. The Republican-majority Congress continues its attacks on the environment, the Endangered Species Act and the Antiquities Act, among others. An Alaskan senator introduced legislation to open nearly 21 acres of pristine wilderness to oil and gas drilling, logging and other 'development.'

Fisheries are being overfished and various western states are engaging in land grabs as they try to take control of federal lands so they can sell them to the highest bidder for exploitation. Our oceans are polluted and home to massive islands of plastic debris, most of it dumped overboard from large ships.

According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, there are 44,838 species on the IUCN Red List, and 16,938 of them are endangered species threatened with extinction. This is up from 16,118 last year. This includes both endangered animals and endangered plants.

On a local level, despite five years of drought in the high desert area where I live, city 'leaders' continue to approve permits to construct housing for some 90,000 new residents, with no apparent concern about where the water for these houses and residents will come from. Undeveloped lands continue to be 'developed', with still more restaurants, businesses and strip malls under construction, adding to the demand for water and to the already congested roads.

The city of Albuquerque just last year provided recycling bins to each household in the city. Why wasn't this done years ago? When I lived in California, recycling was a way of life. Every house had a recycling bin, and everything, including glass and Styrofoam, was accepted. Not here. Nationwide in 2012, Americans generated about 251 million tons of trash and recycled and composted almost 87 million tons of this material, equivalent to a 34.5 percent recycling rate according to the Environmental Protection Agency. This is pretty pathetic for such an 'advanced' and 'educated' nation. I routinely pick up fast food trash and discarded bottles and cans in my neighborhood, often in the same location. This leads me to believe the same people are tossing trash out their car windows on a regular basis.

I know we have made progress since the first Earth Day 45 years ago. Hybrid and electric vehicles are much more common than just a few years ago. Recycling is more accepted than it was.  The fight against coal and other environmentally dangerous fossil fuels is picking up steam.  Solar energy is becoming more affordable. But we still have a long, long way to go to protect our precious planet and try to reverse some of the damage we have caused. Our planet is very resilient, but the damage we humans inflict on our 'blue marble' is too much for Mother Nature. This is the only known habitable planet in the solar system. It behooves us to take better care of our home. We need to start doing a better job of saving tomorrow.